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Watching last evening’s live webcast by Bill and Melinda Gates, I liked how Bill zipped past Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, and the Windows logo, to note that these ‘pictures’ don’t compare to something completely different –a chart showing decreasing infant mortality rates.
I love it when presentations don’t use graphics as a crutch. (Love it when the first slide is not the darn company logo, as if to remind the brain dead in the audience as to who is presenting! Full disclosure: I have committed this crime myself, and know it sucks!)
Love it when someone stops a canned PowerPoint preso and uses the flip chart instead to draw some crude Venn diagram or stick figure to explain the point. (If you’ve not read The Back of a Napkin, I highly recommend it, as I have done before like a broken record.)
In somewhat ironic news, this month, Gates (who owns Corbis) supposedly ‘expanded his stock photo empire’ with a small stake in Eastman Kodak.
Just as the aphorism goes that “there are lies, damn lies and advertising,” I wonder if it’s time for someone to come up with one about stunts –especially the PR variety.
Let me be clear. I don’t condemn stunts. In fact it might be construed as another word for ‘tactic’ or creative attempt to make a point.
So I was about to classify this latest ‘underwater cabinet meeting‘ by the President of Maldives as a stunt, but I thought I’d put the question to my readers to check the pulse first. I won’t go into the details here, suffice to say that it takes a bit of effort to get your cabinet to strip down to scuba diving suits –and anchor desks to the coral– to pull off something like this.
But back to the definition of a PR stunt. Here are some past examples that might fall into this category.
- Pole dancing in the streets of Manhattan
- Admitting to a PR stunt -charging for use of bathrooms on planes
- Boy lost in runaway balloon –a stunt that looks like an accident
I know, there are more. But for our purposes, let’s ask if promoting a cause or a brand validates the approach. Governments are quick to blame each other when an international or bilateral crisis arises, calling it a stunt, even though there had been no specific public facing activity. Headline writers find it a useful 5-letter word to spice up a story. (As in this one, that was clearly a misplaced use of money, rather than a stunt).
I would think a PR stunt is anything that
- Involves an event or a sustained activity that is staged, primarily for gaining media attention
- Is unusual or controversial
- Is connected with an extended campaign that does not involve PR or advertising. Behavior modification, for example
The first --gaming the media –can be dangerous, if done to fool the media. If the balloon incident being debated this week proves to be an act of self-promotion by wasting time and money of a sheriff’s department, that’s a dumb stunt, indeed.
The second –is often creative and harmless. The guy who dons a pizza delivery attire and ‘delivers’ his resume (attached to the box) to a marketing director, is clearly breaking out of the old method (email or mail) to get his application to the top of the pile.
The third –wins my approval, hands down. This is what all good (insert the word ‘marketing,’ ’cause promotion,’ ‘advertising’ as a prefix here) campaigns ought to be.
President Nasheed’s course of action seems more like the third category. He has a point to make, and what better way than for a leader of a country surrounded by –and threatened by– water to do this?
“In the surround-sound media environment of today, there is no shortage of places you can go to see an expert’s view of business and where it is headed. What I took from the first day of the World Business Forum, however, was just how important passion is as a common thread in the people (and their organizations) who are accomplishing something.”
Rohit Bhargava, on the World Business Forum
“While 60% of employees use word processing daily, only 42% actually create documents.”
Forrester Research report on technology adoption in the workplace.
“In a real-time, social media world, marketing has to react immediately to the successes and shortcomings of operations, product development, legal, finance, customer support, and the idiosyncrasies of company personnel.”
Jason Baer, on how social media gives everything a marketing focus.
“A turtle travels only when it sticks its neck out.”
Tweet by @lspearmanii
“Hi! This is your aspirin bottle calling. I haven’t seen you in a while…”
Peter Svensson, of the Associated Press, on the technology that connects the pill bottle cap to an AT&T network.
“Does our Cicero even glance at his speeches before reading them in public?”
George Will, conservative columnist for the washington Post, on Obama’s overuse of words and concepts in his speech at Copenhagen.
“Nice headlamps”
Headline of a billboard ad for a Northern Ireland used-car web site, that got the advertisement banned in the UK. The accompanying visual was not about cars…
“There’s nothing quite as insecure as a television anchorman.”
Kent Dana, the news anchor for Channel 5 (KPHO) in Phoenix, and previously anchor of Channel 12 (KPHX), retiring after a 30-years work in the news business.
“This is the biggest investment we’ve made in a national launch … “This is not your grandmother’s instant coffee.”“
Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, on the launch of Via, the instant brew
“rather than submitting their images and videos to mainstream media organisations, they post them online on Facebook, Twitpic, or wherever their friends are likely to see them.”
Robin Hamman, visiting journalism fellow at City University, London, commenting on the social media use during disaster and tragedy.
“This whole things has been quite scary.”
David Letterman, admitting he had had an affair with an employee.
“It is a whole other universe of risk.”
State Rep Steve Farley of Tucson, on texting and driving, as Arizona considers a bill to ban it.
“… Which is another reason why news operations don’t publish all the good news we hear about. There would be no room for the rest.”
E.J. Montini, commenting on All the Good News Fit To Print.
“But you have to remember if you have a conversation on the wall, you could be opening up the entire conversation to the public.”
Robyn Itule, an account manager with Armstrong Troyky, a PR and Ad agency in Phoenix
‘Then out of nowhere this big wave, as tall as the sky, hit.”
A 21-year old woman in the Pacific Island of Samoa, on the devastating tsunami that hit the area, followed by an earthquake in Sumatra.
“There’s always truth in snark.”
Chris Brogan, during his presentation at New Media Atlanta, commenting on the back-channel tool, BackNoise, saying “always confront the thing you are fear most head-on.”
Last week Dipnote, the blog by the State Department, turned two.
So much has happened in two years. It was the year that the iPhone debuted, and Microsoft bought a stake in Facebook. A few months before that TIME named all those people creating content and connecting through social media as the ‘Person of the Year’ – the famous “YOU” issue.
Luke Forgerson, Managing Editor of Dipnote
Dipnote took to this new way of communicating with amazing flair. If there is one example of I’ve been using repeatedly to illustrate how any organization could stop firing press releases and start a conversation, it’s been them.
Think about it. Foreign policy to many is as sexy as watching paint dry. But given the right angles –heck, the right to loosen up– and the interest in listening as much as speaking, it turns out to be a different animal.
I have talked to many organizations who are terrified at the thought of saying something that could come back to bite them. Blogs, and videos, and photos pulled from a diverse group of individuals seem like total anarchy to them. It might damage the brand, they fear. The question I get asked a lot is ‘What if someone says something nasty?” –followed by “should we publish that too?”
I won’t go into the responses I give, but you’d think a group of people who represent the brand image of a country must have thought about this a lot. There must be bookshelves of white papers and journals on this subject in their offices. There must be legal advisers shaking their heads in disbelief.
And yet…
If you look at the social media initiatives the State Dept has rolled out over the past few years, these ‘government employees’ seem to take to new media in a way you’d expect of a marketing organization. Maybe they understand that good marketing is all about good communication. It’s more than the ingredients of ‘technology and talent‘ that Sec. Clinton spoke about.
It’s about using social media as an antenna not a bullhorn.
The idea of sharing in a 21st century university is a given. Terms like collaboration, cross-disciplinary, interactive get thrown around. The Open-source movement has also crept into class-room and curricular initiatives.
But what might happen when you take this to its logical conclusion, and invite participation and sharing at a different level? That’s what Digidorm is all about. A sort of a social network for colleges. I know what you’re thinking: isn’t that what Facebook was all about in its early days? It hopes to be more, engaging anyone in the education space –enrolled students, alumni, faculty, parents, employees, and even high school students.
Digidorm intends to tap into the culture and vitality of college life and the communities that sustain any college, mashing up knowledge, providing writing tips, and library info, and college applications.
Digidorm is a bold idea by James Palazzolo, formerlyof ASU. Bold because it compiles some 3000 universities and allows anyone -who registers– to publish writing, video, photographs, and documents.
Interestingly, James did his master’s degree at ASU on this topic, and has the chops to make this work. I’ve known him for years as someone always involved in collaboration and sharing, from wikis to text messaging (before the Virginia Tech incident forced every college to go this route) to live blogging.
Will it ruffle feathers? I can expect this for several reasons.
- Not only because of the content that will show up there, but because it could become the defacto intranet for colleges that should have created this in the first place.
- Being a third party space, it will be out of the range of those who must manage a college’s (or an individual’s) reputation. How will a professor dispute an inaccuracy? How could parents request a takedown of an embarrassing photo of a child?
Already people who are trying to cope with keeping tabs on a school’s image (that show up in Facebook posts, videos on YouTube, tweets and vlogs) have their hands full. Digidorm adds one more headache -or opportunity, depending on how you approach it.
CHECK THIS: video that explains how to get started with a contribution.
Yesterday while interviewing Mara DeFilippis, founder of Arizona’s Arizona’s Green Chamber of Commerce, she mentioned ‘The story of stuff’ and I realized I had not seen it for some time now.
I revisited the site and discovered that it now has an international site, with the story told –via sub-titles– in Arabic, Hebrew, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Dutch, Mandarin and Thai!
I also realized how there are some very powerful storytelling techniques at work, and I like to highlight three that anyone could inject into any form of communication:
Passion: Annie Leonard is no doubt a great presenter, but her passion for what she is presenting is what really makes the story come alive. We often present on topics we are very familiar with, and tend to get jaded. Our body language, and choice of words can convey that passion.
Connective Tissue: Good storytellers weave in and out of facts with an ulterior motive, drawing connections, building toward the denouement. This 20-minute video is packed with facts. But they all build a story of how the ’system’ works –or doesn’t. She connects the dots for us as we listen.
Great mix of human & visual elements. In a digital world, it’s easy to amp up the ‘performance’ or use illustrations or stock photos to move a story forward. Leonard’s conversational technique interacts so well with the illustrations hovering above her head, it’s hard to see one without the other. In storytelling people and images should not be an either/or choice. Even when there is no video or visual, it’s possible to paint images with words.
So the next time you are presenting, or telling Your Story, take a closer look at this video and you will probably find more than the three elements I highlighted.
Enjoy!
This morning I am participating in a web video conference for the US embassy in Sri Lanka on how to think about social media.
My working title for this is ”Think Outside the Blog,’ considering how blogs have become the center of gravity for so much of what we do –what we produce, consume, how we distribute, connect, and participate in the so-called link economy.
I therefore will be digging deeper, and framing it around Cocktail Conversations –how web 2.0 (which has infected our listening and speech faculties) lets us communicate in a very crowded room.
Why is the room crowded? First because everyone is gate crashing the party! It ’s not just crowded, but noisy because everyone –and not just PR people, journalists and marketers– has a voice. Unfortunately everyone has arrived at the party with a megaphone, rather than an antenna. As such in social media (as in social life!) the best communicators are the best listeners.
But I will also be broaching the topic of whether content is still king. I hear this all the time, at new media hangouts, writing seminars etc. I don’t dispute that cointent is VERY important (the alternative is fluff) but we don’t give enough respect to context. It’s way too easy to come up with, and deliver content. Context takes more work.
Another way to think about this topic is to think about who really has a voice today? In the market economy, those who had the money to run ads and PR campaigns controlled the conversation. In the link economy there are new contenders to the throne.
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